Student-made diorama comparing “The Wizard of Oz” to “Silver Shoes.”

I was truly bowled over today after I received a thank-you message from a teacher I met at the Kansas Reading Association’s annual conference last October. To my surprise and great delight, Karla Smallwood from Oswego Middle School in Oswego, Kansas, informed me she had chosen Silver Shoes for a classroom project with her eighth-graders. They were asked to compare and contrast various scenes from my novel with the film version of The Wizard of Oz, tying the two stories together from these two different media.

The photo above shows Dorothy Gale wearing the Ruby Slippers, journeying down the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City with her beloved companions, while on the left, I see sixth-grader Donald Gardner, on his own quest for the Silver Shoes, standing next to the winding stream just outside the mysterious castle hidden in a forest in Germany.

The photo below is captioned as depicting one of the portals described in my book that leads from our world to Oz. I can also see the medieval German castle from Silver Shoes right next to it.

Students from Oswego Middle School in Oswego, Kansas, working on dioramas that depict scenes from the novel “Silver Shoes.”

I have to say that learning about this project and seeing these photos has been incredibly touching to me. To find others becoming inspired by the adventure story of Silver Shoes in such a creative and thoughtful way has, in turn, inspired me yet again as an author.

As I forge the final chapters of my first draft for the sequel to Silver Shoes, I can’t think of a more stimulating way to spur me to the finish line.